


better creatures

by lionofsounis



Category: Lunar Chronicles - Marissa Meyer
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, just a lil angst tho, protective!thorne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-26
Updated: 2017-09-26
Packaged: 2019-01-05 15:58:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12193065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionofsounis/pseuds/lionofsounis
Summary: I am made of bullets; shrapnel. You are solar flares and soft lips -- Better creatures could love you, I know. But now they'll have to get through me.Thorne reflecting on his life, on Cress, on almost losing her. Spoilers for Cress, Winter, and Wires & Nerve.





	better creatures

**Author's Note:**

> stumbled across this poem on tumblr dot com and it seemed very cress/thorne to me... this has been sitting in my drafts forever and I finally admitted its never going to be more finished than it is now so its getting posted. hope you enjoy. :)

I AM MADE OF BULLETS; SHRAPNEL.   
YOU ARE SOLAR FLARES   
AND SOFT LIPS -

BETTER CREATURES COULD LOVE YOU, I KNOW.   
BUT NOW THEY’LL HAVE TO    
GET THROUGH    
ME.

_ -MY LOVE SHOULD WEAR A WARNING SIGN, DAMN RIGHT I REMEMBER YOU      _ [ _ |E.J.| _ ](http://ihopewestay.tumblr.com/)

 

* * *

 

_ I am made of bullets; shrapnel. _

 

_ *** _

 

He's a disaster. He knows it. He never should have agreed (volunteered) to be the one to go to the satellite. It should've been Scarlet. Deep down he knows Scarlet is just as susceptible to Lunar mind tricks as he is, but Scarlet is fierce and capable and somehow he thinks things would have gone differently if it had been her.

 

But it wasn't her. It was him, and minutes later the satellite is plummeting to Earth and he's knocked out cold under a bed with a tiny blonde who's scared of everything. They survive, somehow, and pull themselves from the wreckage (he's a disaster but he has to admit -- he's good at pulling himself from wreckage) and he feels more broken than ever. He's blind, to begin with, so he's going to be completely useless to this poor girl and on top of that, he's just cut her hair -- and he's blind so he's probably made a disaster of it.

 

(She doesn't say anything about it. ‘It's fine,’ she says, or ‘it's okay.’ It isn't fine and it isn't okay, but he doesn't want to hear the truth so he doesn't press it.)

 

He can't see the broken satellite but if he could, he'd look at the bent metal and burnt bits and the shrapnel scattered around their landing site and think, without much emotion -- not even disappointment -- that it's a fitting testament to his life. To his involvement in all of this. He likes to think he's helping Cinder, and he supposes the Rampion  _ has _ been helpful, but he's not really sure what  _ he's _ contributing.

 

Cress apologizes, once, while she's feverish and, well, she really isn't dying but she certainly might be if they don't find help soon.

 

_ “I'm sorry you're stuck with me.” _

 

He tells her it's nonsense and that she's delirious because it is and she is. But his thoughts speak a deeper truth.

 

_ I'm sorry  _ you're  _ stuck with  _ me, he thinks.

 

She deserves a better hero, because he's really not great at this.

 

He thinks it'll get better when they meet up with the traders and get back to civilization, but the pretending to be married is a stupid idea -- he’s blind and he forgets how young she looks -- and the poker game is even stupider.

 

All he wants is to get Iko a real body. He actually doesn't mind her narrating his ship, but she can do better. She  _ wants  _ better.

 

But of course, even his good intentions turn into disasters. He just can't catch a break.

 

Because Cress gets kidnapped and  _ sold _ on the black market like she's… a thing, one of the trinkets or antiquities he's stolen, rather than a person, which makes his blood boil with an anger he didn't know he possessed and he's always known he's a bit of a mess, but this feels like the satellite crash all over again, all shrapnel and broken glass and twisted metal and scorched sand, but this time the mess is all inside his own head. He's always known he's a disaster, but for the first time, he feels the weight of his catastrophe as it messes up someone else's life (it's odd because he never notices it so viscerally when it causes  _ him _ problems) and it hits him like a ton of bricks. 

 

He doesn't know that Cress believes he'll come after her, he doesn't know that she hopes, then prays, then gives up on him and decides to save herself (as she should). The question of it never enters his mind, once he realizes what's happened.

 

He goes after her.

 

He never questions it, doesn't even think about it or how it's going to work -- especially not with an escort droid following him the whole way -- he just goes, and he improvises as he does. He beats Jamal with his cane and threatens to shoot up a whole hallway of the hotel, blind though he is, steals a car, and doesn't stop moving till he hears her voice again.

 

_ “Captain, I'm in here!” _

 

He stumbles across the room, tired and dirty and sweaty, his heart still pounding with fear and adrenaline, but he finds her and pulls her into his arms, forgetting that Wolf and the doctor and the guard are all there and breathes her in because she's safe and whole and maybe not happy, but closer to being so than she has been so far.

 

_ “You came for me,”  _ she says. She likes to tell him he's not a disaster. His unseeing eyes are dreamy, not unnerving. He's a hero, not a criminal. And it's good for his ego and his self-esteem, but the surprise in her voice tells him the truth.

 

She hadn't really expected him to come. She's surprised because he  _ didn't  _ disappoint her.

 

“Don't sound so surprised,” he says, which is completely unfair of him -- of course she's surprised, she has every right to be surprised, what has he been so far but completely disappointing? “You're worth a lot of money on the black market.”

 

She laughs. It starts right next to his ear, where her her chin’s perched on his shoulder with her feet dangling a foot above the floor, tapping against his knees. Her joy reverberates through him, warming him right down to his toes and it feels like the sun coming up after a cold night.

 

He doesn't put it together yet that he's in love with her, because he's an idiot and he's not really used to having feelings about people other than himself, but he is. He has been for days now.

 

Looking back, he can't believe himself. Such a mess that he doesn't even notice when he's in love with someone.

 

_ “You came for me,”  _ she says. The ‘I didn't think you would’ remains unspoken. But it twists into him like a shrapnel wound, digging in and aching with every breath he takes.

 

_ I didn't think you would. _

 

* * *

 

_ You are solar flares _

_ and soft lips. _

 

***

 

The bullet in his leg aches. It's become a sort of dull throb now -- not because it feels any better, more because it's been there for so long now that he's sort of used to it.

 

It's amazing what you can get used to.

 

His ribs also ache, from being punched and kicked and generally smacked around, and he can feel dried blood under his nose and on his lips. He runs his tongue across them, and finds the flesh torn and dry and broken.

 

Not like Cress’s lips.

 

That thought sends him to war with himself. It aches to think of her -- more than the bullet inside him, the bruises, the broken skin, because he knows there's a distinct possibility that he'll never see her again. It aches so much that he thinks he'd rather be shot again, because that somehow hurts less. But at the same time, he feels a kind of peace settle into his bones, because he saved her. He did something  _ right _ for once. Cress might not be safe, but she's safer because she's not where he is and he knows she's going to get into the communications room somehow -- he doesn't know how, but she'll figure it out, he's certain of it. She's a genius, after all.

 

She's a genius and she's going to save them all and she's the one that's going to make Cinder’s plan work, because she can do anything. She's going to be heroic, and she’s going to be safe and get out of this alive, and that's all that matters, and he thinks he could die happy knowing that. He'd be shot a thousand times, let his body be riddled with bullets and blood and pain, if he knew it would get her a little closer to being safe.

 

The girl needs a little more safe in her life.

 

And that's why he doesn't deserve her. He isn't safe. He's constantly on the run and constantly in trouble. He’s a giant failure and always has been.

 

But he is going to die. Probably.

 

She'll be sad, at first, and for a while, most likely. But she'll get over it eventually, and she'll find someone good and safe and she'll be happy. Cinder and Wolf and Jacin and everyone will make sure she is. He allows himself to imagine her meeting Scarlet, briefly, and laughs at the thought. Scarlet the Mama Bear would threaten any boys that came calling for Cress with her shotgun and only the worthwhile or stupid ones would risk it. Scarlet would shoot the stupid ones, so there was nothing to worry about.

 

(He thinks he would be one of the stupid ones. He imagines Scarlet chasing him off with a shotgun and finds it'd be funny if it wasn't so scary).

 

Yes, Cress would be in good hands. She'll be safe without him. Safer than she would be  _ with _ him.

 

But his traitorous mind circles back to her lips.

 

To her face and her tiny frame in the dim glow of the conservatory, the greenish light that should have clashed with her orange dress, but just seemed to make it sparkle all the brighter. He thinks of the sequins reflecting on her face and how he couldn't tell where they stopped and her freckles began, he thinks of the silly antenna hat she'd been wearing and how annoyed she'd been with it and how she'd tugged it off right before he kissed her.

 

He thinks of his hands, far too rough for her gentle skin, hooking behind her legs and pulling her up and in. He thinks of his hands burning at her waist, her hands on his chest, her fingers tangling in his hair, his arms pulling her closer and closer till they couldn't hold her any tighter.

 

He thinks of the bullet in his leg and her soft lips against his and knows he'll never feel them again but he smiles anyway.

 

_ Be heroic,  _ he'd said, and he'd been talking to her.

 

But when they come for him and bind his hands and drag him up to the throne room, he thinks it to himself.

 

_ Be heroic. _

 

That’s what Cress would want him to do. It’s what she needs him to do. What Cinder and all his friends and everyone on this forsaken space-rock needs him to do. He can be heroic, he decides, just this once.

 

They don't know about the knife still hidden in his sleeve or the fact that he's going to do everything he can to get out of this. They don't know that, for a walking disaster, he's awfully lucky.

 

He thinks of sunshine hair cut short. He thinks of freckles and sparkling blue eyes. He thinks of petal soft lips.

 

He's going to be heroic. He's going to do everything he can to see her again.

 

But if he can't -- if he doesn't -- he'll have done something right, and he'll be able to go to his death thinking of the one person who saw good in him when no one else did. The one person who saw the good, but also the bad, and still wanted him.

 

Levana is smiling evilly, when he gets where they're taking him. She sends him to the balcony to wait and he goes, and he waits.

 

She casts her cold eye on him from time to time.

 

He smiles at her. He thinks of the bullet in his leg and the blood on his face, the light in the greenhouse and and the intoxicating smell of flowers. He thinks of freckles, of blonde hair, of blue eyes and pink lips.

 

The queen sneers at him.

 

And he smiles.

 

* * *

 

_ Better creatures could love you, I know. _

 

***

 

_ “You deserve better. Even I know that.” _

 

He knows people don't really deserve each other, and he knows that's what Cinder and Kai and Scarlet and everyone is going to tell him, but right now it's true: he doesn’t deserve her.

 

So he explains to her what he's going to do and what he's asking of her and tells her she should say no but she doesn't, and he loves her so much he forgets to care about should or shouldn't or who deserves who.

 

He knows he's going to have to spend the rest of his life pretending he's done enough to deserve her, he knows he's not going to get close.

 

But maybe -- maybe, if he's very,  _ very  _ lucky (and he  _ is _ stupidly lucky, maybe even lucky enough for this) -- he might get  _ sort of _ close.

 

And anyway, she's going to keep worrying about being good enough for him (as ludicrous as such a thing is), so maybe they're kind of even.

 

(He knows being  _ even  _ isn't a thing, when it comes to insecurities and relationships but he thinks it anyway, and he's not going to tell Cinder or Kai or Scarlet about that one, he'll save himself the lecture).

 

_ “I'm in love with you,”  _ she tells him, not for the first time, but for the first real time and he kisses her sunshine hair and thinks of satellite shrapnel, and then he kisses her lips and thinks of bullets.

 

He's a disaster, a mess. Someday soon he'll even refer to himself as a catastrophic disappointment, and call it an understatement.

 

But for someone who's such a problem -- for someone who  _ causes _ so many problems -- he's very lucky.

 

_ You deserve better _ , he thinks, and he supposes someday someone better might come along.

 

He thinks of the bullet hole in his leg and the stubby bits under his cast where fingers used to be and finds he doesn't miss them.

 

Someone better will come along, eventually, and he'll let her go if she wants to.

 

He's terrified that she'll want to.

 

But in the meantime, he is very,  _ very  _ lucky, and if she wants to be with him now he'll take it, because he knows how it feels to lose her, and he's lost her so many times already.

 

(The traffickers in the desert. Their landing on Luna when they were separated. His getting caught and shot and almost thrown off a balcony. When he'd -- no,  _ Levana _ had tried to kill her. He’s lost her more times that he can count on his right hand).

 

Being with Cress now might hurt him later, he thinks, and losing her again will probably kill him. But maybe he won't lose her.

 

Maybe he'll be lucky.

 

* * *

 

_ But now they'll have to _

_ Get through _

_ Me. _

 

***

 

_ “What have you done with her?” _

 

His voice is harsh. Only the fact that he's so angry is keeping him from breaking down. He needs Cress. He needs to know where she is, if she's safe. Right now all he knows is that there’s blood and poison pooling on the infirmary table and his heart is pounding so hard he's starting to wonder if twenty-somethings can have heart attacks from pure stress.

 

On top of everything he's feeling the heavy guilt of leaving Iko.

 

Cinder is going to  _ murder  _ him if anything happens to Iko. Like, really murder him, unlike all the times she's threatened to and not followed through.

 

But -- he's a little ashamed to admit -- he forgets about Iko when the wolf hybrid replies.

 

“Who could he mean?” One soldier speaks to the other, a confident smirk on his canine face. Thorne feels his lip curl into a sneer.

 

“Hard to say,” the other hybrid drawls. “The little computer girl, perhaps?”

 

_ Little computer girl? _ The little computer girl's boyfriend was two pounding heartbeats away from kicking some serious wolf hybrid ass if they didn't give him some hard facts about where she was.

 

“We haven't seen her, but I doubt she'll be hard to find,” the wolfman continues. “I can smell her from here.”

 

Two pounding heartbeats were well past. “If you hurt her, I will skin you alive,” Thorne hears himself say. Later, he'll wonder where  _ that _ bloodthirsty utterance came from, and what he was thinking attacking two wolf soldiers with nothing but a scalpel from the infirmary, but he's a disaster, and a very lucky one at that, so he goes for it.

 

Luckily, the  _ little computer girl  _ \-- who he needn't have worried about -- is hiding nearby, and saves his life, dropping not one, but two hybrid wolf soldiers with a tranq gun she doesn't even know how to use.

 

She'd been watching the gala on her port and saw everything. And she's a genius, so of course she was two steps ahead of everyone. She explains how she'd dumped ammonia on her head to mask her smell, and cut her arm open to throw them off. He feels he shouldn't be surprised when she tells him she fell asleep in the process.

 

Only Cress could fall asleep while coming to her own rescue.

 

He kisses her, and she breaks it off, worrying about Iko, who he's now sure will be fine -- when will he learn to stop underestimating his friends? -- and he gives her his medal.

 

She beams at him and he leans his forehead into hers, feeling like a man who's come home at the end of a long day.

 

Then she yawns. “I feel terrible.”

 

In all the excitement, he'd forgotten.

 

Not only had his girl outsmarted and bested two hybrid wolf soldiers with nothing but ammonia, a scalpel, intense pain tolerance, and a gun she didn't know worked --  _ in her sleep  _ \-- she'd done it all with a terrible head cold.

 

She turns away, yawning again. “Wake me up when Iko gets back.”

 

He stares, wondering how in all the stars he'd been so lucky as to find her.

 

He remembers thinking Scarlet should have been the one in the podship, flying to the satellite.

 

He's damn glad it wasn't.

 

Then he blinks. “Cress, are you getting blood on my best shirt?” It was rumpled and wrinkly, and he'd missed it at first, but that was definitely the shirt he'd been looking for earlier.

 

She doesn't even look back at him. “I ruined my favourite PJs, and you're worried about the shirt that's been collecting dust in the infirmary?”

 

So that's where it'd been. He'd wanted wear it to the gala.

 

“Besides,” she says, a little sheepish, “I forgot to grab a change of clothes and it was the only thing in there.”

 

She turns into the doorway of his cabin, which is covered with tissues and blankets and empty mugs. Thorne shakes his head, laughing, then snatches her waist and pulls her close. “I'll grab you some new PJs from your cabin. That's going to be no fun to sleep in.” He kisses the top of her head.

 

“Thanks.”

 

She's already asleep when he gets back, curled up in a ball in his bed. He leaves the pyjamas on the bedside table and tucks the blankets around her gently, trying not to wake her. She shifts a little, but her eyes stay closed.

 

His hand pauses on the covers, watching her restful face and getting lost in thought.

 

He thinks back -- it feels so long ago now, but it hasn't even been a year yet -- to a crashing satellite. To the mind-numbing heat of the desert. To failed haircuts and failed eyesight and Lunar traffickers that he still fantasizes about fighting. (He's never seen any of them again, but  _ oh _ , if he did).

 

He thinks of doors that are supposed to open automatically but don't, of bullets whizzing by his ears and hers, of running faster than he's ever run, of being controlled by Cinder until it's too late. He thinks of sealed doors and trying frantically to open them. He thinks of Wolf's arms shoving him into the wall, of his growled voice telling him he can't go back. He thinks of Cinder’s voice, and the only time it's ever sounded cruel, telling him they're sticking together, even though they're not together because they've just lost Cress.

 

He thinks of waiting. Endless waiting, in Maha Kesley’s house, and finally understanding how Wolf felt being away from Scarlet.

 

He thinks of glowing bowties and butterfly dresses, of one perfect kiss among the plants and leaves and flowers, and one rushed, final kiss. He thinks of pressing a gun she doesn't know how to use into her hands, of being heroic, of running, again (there’s a lot of running in his life, he decides). He thinks of bullets tearing through his flesh, feet hitting his ribs, fists pounding his face.

 

He thinks of bound hands, a knife, unbound hands.

 

He thinks of blood and missing fingers and the hardest he's ever cried in his life.

 

But he also thinks of bravery. He thinks of a girl in a satellite who never stopped dreaming, who saw beauty in a desert wasteland. He thinks of the girl who knocked her elderly father out cold because she wasn't going to get let anyone take her freedom again. He thinks of the same girl, standing up to the woman who'd kept her locked up for years and the rush of pride it had sent thrilling through him.

 

He thinks of a girl who's scared of everything -- especially being alone -- who leaves her friends behind to help them, who could escape but doesn't because someone she doesn't know will be safer if she stays behind again. He thinks of a tiny girl in a glittering butterfly dress, breaking into a communications room. He thinks of the same girl, with absurdly good aim, shooting his fingers off and him not even being mad about it.

 

He thinks about  _ “this isn't what I want”,  _ and how hard it must have been to say those words, because he can't imagine saying them to her. But he thinks about being trapped, and about being valued, and he understands, because she is too brave and too smart to settle for anything less than the best he could give her, even if his best is nothing more than good luck and his talent for climbing out of wreckage of his own making.

 

He thinks about his girl, cutting a hole in her own arm, saving her own and his life while half-asleep and sick, with gun of questionable reliability.

 

She doesn't need him. Even  _ she _ knows that, now. He's not going to stop worrying about her any time soon, but she can take care of herself, and they both know it.

 

But if there ever comes a day when she can't -- if life throws too much even for her to handle -- if those wolf hybrids come for her again…

 

Better people than Thorne could love her, he knows, and worse things could hurt her.

 

But either way, they'll have to go through him.


End file.
